US Patent Issued to Encore Wire on May 13 for "Method and apparatus for applying a label to a spool or reel" (Texas Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 12 -- United States Patent no. 12,297,004, issued on May 13, was assigned to Encore Wire Corp. (McKinney, Texas).

"Method and apparatus for applying a label to a spool or reel" was invented by William T. Bigbee Jr. (Hawkins, Texas) and Clifton S. Thompson (Lucas, Texas).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An apparatus for applying a label to a spool or reel containing wire and a wire tail extending from the spool or reel, the apparatus comprising a wire tail sensor, wherein the wire tail sensor identifies the location of the wire tail protruding from the spool or reel and a label application mechanism, wherein the labeling mechanism applies a label to the spool or reel and whe...